Friday, December 24, 2010

These are so pretty, and so easy to make, I use this recipe from Kootoyoo, which hasn’t failed me yet, I don’t like coconut so I substitute with half a cup of ground almonds instead, I also add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice to the milk to increase the lemonyness*. Itti bitti cupcakes like this take 13-15 minutes in my oven (my oven is hot, I set it on 150 non fan) and bigger normal sized cupcakes take around 20 minutes. They are so delicious and cupcakey* without even having to beat the butter to a pulp before getting started, which is perfect because I don’t have an electric miximajig*.

To add a little festive Christmasyness* I divided the mixture in three and added red and green food colouring, then made up a butter icing to turn them into butterfly cakes, and they are about to hit the table for Christmas Eve afternoon tea, with ‘spiders’ (two crackers, sandwiched with peanut butter or cheese spread with pretzel sticks for legs and sultanas for eyes) and salmon and cucumber sandwiches (which probably won’t get eaten).

*This blog post is dedicated to all the magical made up words out there.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Here’s a sneak peek of what will be going into the post this afternoon. I hope my partner likes it.

I can’t believe Christmas is coming up so fast, with some major changes going on in our house and family arriving Christmas eve the list of things to do is getting longer and longer! I’m glad I can cross this one off.

We bought the Tinkerbell DVD set for Christmas but daddy misunderstood and gave it to her straight away… anyway, mitigating TV viewing with related craft (to ease my conscience) here we have a most beautiful pair of fairy wings.

Monday, October 11, 2010

I’ve been playing around with taking macro pictures with a reversed 50mm lens. Great fun, and I REALLY want a macro lens now :) OK, so the pictures aren’t great but as a proof of concept I was pretty happy with them.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

New clothes for baby, reversible elastic waisted skirt (spotty dotty on the other side), and a rather dodgy t-shirt with matching applique.

B trying to get them off already…

I’ll have to have another go at the t-shirt, the neckline is baggy, and it’s a couple of sizes too small, but it only took about 5 minutes as Miss B was losing interest by then (didn’t hem the neckline/sleeves or bottom).She helped cut the fabrics and sat on my knee while I sewed and was very happy with the result.

I’ve been meaning to make baby some clothes for ages, there will be more I promise – maybe in time for Christmas?

Friday, October 08, 2010

* I’ve been introduced to google readers ‘next’ function (by kirsty who got it from bec who got it from… well you know how it goes… if you use google reader and you haven’t tried it yet go here for a good run down on how it works.

Monday, October 04, 2010

An Imke (from Sewing Clothes Kids Love) is apparently the perfect top for jumping on your sister’s bed in. Two hoodless versions, red with long green sleeves and stripy cap oversleeves, and a t-shirt version in stripy pink knit underneath.

Sunday, October 03, 2010

I’ll put it in the post next week Gina! Hope it’s OK. This was such a fun block to do, I miscut slightly so there’s a couple of extra seams in one of the borders, but I think it adds to the slight wonkiness quite well. Hope it fits the brief correctly.

5) EUC Jaybee mermaid print with two set of boosters. I don’t think these are made any more, but they have a snap in inner and a booster that sits inside the inner, the theory is that you use the outer twice (like you would a cover) as it comes with with two different inner/booster sets. It’s a really beautifully made nappy and a cute print.

6) EUC CK Auriel size 2, Fleece is a little pilled, but would improve with a bit of a brush.

Oh Beehave is the Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild’s first Quilting Bee. My month has kicked off the Bee and I asked for these square blocks with a 6inch central square made up of geometric shapes such as triangles, squares and rectangles, and two borders. I provided 6 5 inch charm squares, a strip of brown fabric, and a scrappy border strip and asked everyone to choose the width of their two borders themselves.

The first three blocks I pieced to give examples of what I was hoping to receive.

And I have received 3 more back so far, and there’s still 2 weeks until the deadline :)

From Gina

From Jotsmum

From Frogdancer

Apart from the brown solid and the kei honeycomb dots all the fabrics came from my scrap pile.

Friday, October 01, 2010

Today is the first day of Blogtober, a months long blogging festival hosted by Tinniegirl.

I’m not committing to blogging everyday, but I’ll do my best.

This is the most delicious bread I have ever eaten. Mmmmm.

The girl and I were making dough shortly before 7 this morning, after our early morning walk! And what a beautiful 5.30am it was this morning, fresh but not cold, sun rising and sparkling on the calm waters of the bay and a little person to chat with on the way, “where is the moon mummy, what’s that noise mummy, I see the boat mummy, is it moving mummy, it’s moving, it’s moving (no it’s not) where is the moon, there it is (excited voice), moon’s gone (behind a building), what’s that in the sky (hot air balloon), I see a dog…, I like birds, what’s that noise (parrots), I don’t like parrots, where are the parrots, me see, me see, where is the moon, moon is awake, grandma sleeping (I told her when the moon disappears it is at grandma’s house in the UK)” and so on and so forth, we shared a very pleasurable 40 minutes.

Anyway back to the bread, recipe from here, inspiration from here. I understand why people buy bread, although there isn’t much time involved, you really do have to set aside the whole morning to allow for rising and cooking, but having eaten this (I’ve only made Pizza dough and focaccia before) I can also understand why people do make their own bread.